THE POINTS GUY RELEASES ITS SEVENTH ANNUAL BEST AIRLINES REPORT

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May 24, 2023, 08:30 ET

Annual Best Airlines Report Reveals Best and Worst Airlines in America Based on Reliability, Overall Experience, Cost, Loyalty Offerings, and More

NEW YORK, May 24, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, The Points Guy (TPG) has released its seventh annual Best Airlines Repor t naming Delta Air Lines the number one airline in America for the fifth year in a row, with Frontier rounding out the list. TPG ranked airlines in the United States from best to worst according to criteria including reliability, experience, costs, reach and loyalty. The rankings reflect a strategic methodology that evaluates all aspects of a customer's journey — from ticketing through baggage delivery and even redeeming rewards for future trips.

"With travel back in full swing, passengers' demands higher than in previous years and continued travel chaos, airlines have been working to keep up and adapt to consumers' changing travel habits," said Brian Kelly, Founder of The Points Guy. "Our team at The Points Guy has spent countless hours analyzing the last year of air travel to create this comprehensive guide that identifies which airlines are meeting the needs of consumers and help travelers make smarter, more informed decisions when planning their vacations."

This year, United Airlines took the number two spot overall, with Alaska, American and Southwest rounding out the top five rankings. By contrast, JetBlue, Spirit, Allegiant and Frontier were the lowest ranked airlines, with areas like timeliness, cancellations, customer satisfaction, and bag change fees coming in significantly lower than other airlines.

Best Airlines Report for 2023 rankings are highlighted below:

Delta Air Lines
United Airlines
Alaska Airlines
American Airlines
Southwest Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines
JetBlue Airways
Spirit Airlines
Allegiant Air
Frontier Airlines

Standout takeaways include:

Delta retained its title for the fifth straight year: Once again, the Atlanta-based carrier performed solidly across multiple categories — only taking low marks for its affordability (or lack thereof). Delta was recognized for its timeliness, as nearly 84% of their flights arrived on time this year.
Southwest's holiday meltdown took a toll: The carrier's operational performance dropped it from second in 2021 to fifth this year. Across just four criteria that would've been impacted by those issues — timeliness, cancellations, baggage handling and customer satisfaction — Southwest scored a bit lower than last year.
Alaska and Spirit are climbing in popularity: Alaska improved its affordability (in both airfare and ancillary fees), while Spirit saw notable improvements in customer satisfaction.
Travelers can rely on Hawaiian for smooth travel: Hawaiian Airlines scored the top spot for most reliable U.S. carrier, as it had the lowest cancellation rate. While JetBlue was the top airline for cabin features, with complimentary Wi-Fi, plus seatback TVs and the largest economy seats in the U.S, they lacked in reliability.
As a whole, airlines did a worse job in 2022: Many elements show overall drops in performance when The Points Guy combined data across all 10 airlines. Customer complaints were up 87.6% year over year, while prices per 1,000 passenger miles rose 22.67%. Meanwhile, the data showed increases in involuntary bumps (up 87.45%), cancellations (up 54%) and mishandled bags (up 25%) — all of which demonstrate the ongoing struggle to meet the high demand for air travel.

Report methodology:
To compile these rankings, TPG does a deep analysis across the reliability, experience, loyalty and cost & reach for each airline. TPG examines data from the U.S. Department of Transportation (D.O.T.), including passenger complaints filed with the D.O.T., as well as lost luggage reports for each airline. Additionally, in consulting the airlines' financials and combing through publicly available fleet data, the experts at TPG were able to factor all those elements — and more — into the rankings for 2023's best airlines report.

For all criteria, the raw scores from the data were converted into a scaled score from 0 to 10 and then weighted using the following percentages to arrive at the final score. This ensured that the calculation for each airline's score was made relative to the performance of others — as opposed to a simple ranking system that wouldn't accurately capture these differences.

The full list of factors and weighting was as follows:
Reliability (30%)

Timeliness (using data on delayed flights from the D.O.T.).
Cancellations (using data on canceled flights from the D.O.T.).
Involuntary bumps (using data on involuntary denied boardings from the D.O.T.).
Baggage (using data on mishandled baggage from the D.O.T.).
Wheelchairs/scooters (using data on mishandled baggage from the D.O.T.).

Experience (25%)

Cabin features (using data from SeatGuru and inflight amenity offerings from each carrier's website).
Lounges (using data on the number of lounges, number of cities and price of membership for each applicable lounge network).
Family (using a 0-to-5 score based on boarding, perks and food/entertainment on board).
Customer satisfaction (using data on customer complaints from the DOT).

Costs and reach (20%)

Route network (using the monthly average of domestic cities served by each airline from the DOT).
Affordability (using financial data from the BTS).
Bag/change fees (using financial data from the BTS).

Loyalty (25%)

Frequent flyer (using data from our monthly valuations, elite status reports and each carrier's website).
Award availability (using real-time award inventory for popular domestic routes across three distinct time periods).

For a year-over-year comparison, TPG's 2022 Best Airlines Report can be viewed here.

About The Points Guy
The Points Guy (TPG) is a trusted travel and lifestyle media platform that focuses on maximizing travel experiences while minimizing spending. Through an informative, clever point of view, TPG has become the leading online site for all things points, miles and resourceful travel experiences. The site's editorial content and newsletter consists of firsthand flight, hotel and airplane reviews, curated travel guides and immersive video components, as well as global event activations. Since its launch in 2010, founder Brian Kelly has expanded the team to include a distinguished editorial staff and extensive network of freelancers around the globe. Today, TPG reaches 11 million unique monthly visitors and more than 3.5 million followers across social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok).

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SOURCE The Points Guy